The 2019 Porsche Panamera GTS Is Ready to Rock

It’s tough being the middle brother. You’ve constantly trying to outdo your younger sibling while still striving to show you’re every bit as capable as the eldest. The Porsche Panamera GTS handles its station in life well. Slotting in between a base four-door luxury saloon and the range-topping Panamera Turbo is no easy feat, but the GTS manages to elbow both of out the way to carve out some limelight for itself.

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The aim of any GTS—Grand Turismo Sport—is to meld race pedigree with top-notch street performance, and swaddle the whole package in comfort and luxury. Let’s start with the bits borne from race circuits. Under the swooping bonnet sits a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V-8 engine, a welcome step up from the twin-turbo V-6 nestled in the base Panameras. While the GTS’ V-8 may be the same beating heart plucked from the Turbo model, it’s detuned down to 460 horsepower and 457 lb-ft of torque. That’s still about 70-some more lb-ft of twist over the prior-gen GTS, though. Nothing to sneeze at. Per Porsche, the GTS models, both the sedan and wagon (dubbed Sport Turismo) will catapult from a dead stop to 60 in 3.9 seconds, with the help of launch control.

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The beast is indeed quick on its feet, as demonstrated by lapping Bahrain’s Grand Prix Circuit. Flying down the front straight, cresting 150 on the speedometer, a deep dive into the upgraded brakes sees ten pistons clamping down on massive front rotors and the sedan’s front end compliantly bows in drama-free fashion. Even after repeatedly thrashings, the carbon ceramic brakes on this 4,500-pound behemoth hold. (The same can’t be said for the all-season 20-inch tires, which start to show serious wear towards the end of our track sessions.)

Turning into the first hairpin after the straight—named for F1 legend Michael Schumacher, who helped design it back in the early Aughts—the Panamera GTS’ largess diminishes a bit. It’s a tricky turn for a lithe car, and the 911 in the lead, piloted by a champion race coach, makes it look easy. Here, our Panamera GTS is aided by Sport Plus mode, which adjusts things like the drivetrain for maximum power, and recalibrates the adaptive air suspension for a stiffer feel.

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The optional Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control Sport function utilizes a 48-volt active roll stabilization system to keep body roll to a minimum, and adds active rear-steer of to a maximum of 2.8 degrees to help cut the turning radius. When everything’s working in concert, it does enable the Panamera GTS to slice through the acute angle of Schumacher’s corner quite deftly. You know there’s a ton of car behind your seat, but it doesn’t feel like it when you chuck it in to a corner like this.

Rowing through the heavenly eight-speed PDK gearbox, you’re acutely aware that the transmission set up has been engineered to give you extra oomph early. Peak torque comes at a mere 1,800 RPM and lasts through the tachometer ticking past 4,500. That’s helpful when you’re trying to scramble out of a corner, pointed uphill, chasing the elusive 911 in front of you.

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Capable track enthusiasts will make greater use of that available yank and power by switching the traction control into sport mode. With regular traction enabled, the system consistently retards requests for more throttle early and often. Those electronic nannies help keep the track newbies pointed forward at all times, but in the hands of two-time world rally champion Walter Rohrl, the system is a detriment. Switching it off, Rohrl uses the full limits of the engine to drift-dance a tire-squealing GTS around the sharpest of corners in a beautiful—and ungodly fast—arc.

While it’s unlikely that many Panamera GTS owners will track the $130,000 steed, the car can hang on a circuit. The active suspension management allows the GTS to gobble up any curbing you wish to tear over, and because it’s made to exacting German standards, you’ll get a reliable and predictable performance, regardless of the session duration. But for a company that makes a big hullabaloo about the emotion of driving, it’s a little muted in that arena. Perhaps it’s because the last Porsche I drove before the Panamera GTS was the 911 GT3, arguably one of the most dialed-in Porsches ever, but the GTS felt like it was lacking that special sauce, even when flinging it around a technical and storied circuit like Bahrain. Even when it’s on the limit, the GTS is missing that goosebump-inducing frenzied energy. Track capable? Absolutely. But are you going to replay your laps for months later in the same way you would a 911? Unlikely.

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On the street, the Panamera GTS is a sedate highway cruiser. Given the strict 80 mph limits of Bahrain’s highways, coupled with speed cameras mounted every on every other palm tree, it was hard to open it up fully, but there was ample opportunity to test out launch mode. It gives you a swift kick in the chest as the GTS snorts through its maximum acceleration process. The Sport Response button, in the middle of the drive mode selector, delivers you maximum power for 20 seconds with each press, and you’ll get a more direct engine response and a more aggressive shifting map that hangs onto gears longer. The Germans should rename this The Fun Button. It’s a hoot every time.

The cabin is appointed in all the fineries you’d expect from a six-figure European sedan. The alcantara-drenched, 18-way power seats are comfortable for long hauls, or in our specific use case, driving across the entire Kingdom of Bahrain to a Fuddruckers restaurant at the very tip. (True story.) A massive touch screen that houses the infotainment system is dynamic and easy to use, and a new heads-up display is a nice touch. The InnoDrive suite of driver aids is robust, encompassing adaptive cruise control, lane keeping assist, and lane change assist and more. If you were to spend hundreds of miles in this cockpit, it’d be a thoroughly pleasant time.

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And spending many hours on highways is precisely the use case for nearly all future Panamera GTS owners. It’ll be perfect, and they’ll be pleased. But for those rare few who dare a little greater, who want to experience the full performance of the GTS by dipping a toe on a track, they’ll not be disappointed.

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